World News - Pentagon grilled over database on war critics Senator demands information about program first disclosed by NBC News

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday asked for answers on an obscure Pentagon agency that included reports on student anti-war protests and other peaceful civilian demonstrations in a database meant to detect terrorist activities.“Under what circumstances can peaceful protests at universities or by anti-war groups be monitored?” Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.“What authorities, and under what regulations, do military counterintelligence units have to conduct investigations on U.S. persons?” she wrote. At issue is a classified database of information about suspicious people and activity inside the United States that’s maintained by a three-year-old Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, whose size and budget also are classified.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com

The Bush administration took the unusual step yesterday of asking the Supreme Court to call off a landmark confrontation over the legality of military trials for terrorism suspects, arguing that a law enacted last month eliminates the court's ability to consider the issue.In a 23-page brief, U.S. Solicitor General Paul D. Clement said the justices should throw out an appeal by Yemeni national Salim Hamdan, an alleged driver and bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, because a new statute governing the treatment of U.S. detainees "removes the court's jurisdiction to hear this action."The brief represents the latest escalation in the showdown between the Bush administration and critics of the government over the legal rights of military detainees captured overseas. Hamdan's case is one of several high-stakes legal battles working their way through the courts, and the Supreme Court's November decision to consider his appeal was a blow to the government....http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/12/AR2006011202340_pf.html

Iran threatened on Friday to block inspections of its nuclear sites if confronted by the U.N. Security Council over its atomic activities. The hard-line president reaffirmed his country's intention to produce nuclear energy. The move came a day after France, Britain and Germany backed by the United States said that nuclear talks with Iran had reached a dead end after more than two years of acrimonious negotiations and the issue should be referred to the Security Council. With the support of Russia and China uncertain, however, they refrained from calling on the 15-nation council to impose sanctions and said they remained open to more talks....http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1502674&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

It is old news that Nato has been searching for a role since the end of the cold war, and especially since its terrible divisions over Iraq. But a potentially serious crisis is looming over the deployment of troops to Afghanistan to take up the slack left by the departure of US forces. And the unlikely culprit for this mission is the Netherlands, a loyal founder member of the Atlantic alliance. There are still a few weeks left before parliament in The Hague holds what is shaping up to be a crucial vote on the issue. This is jangling nerves at Nato's Brussels headquarters and especially in the office of the secretary-general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who happens, embarrassingly, to be a former Dutch foreign minister. But the signs are alarming. Jan Peter Balkenende, the Dutch prime minister and Harry Potter lookalike, is trying to resolve differences with D66, the junior partner in his three-party, centre-right coalition. ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1686070,00.html

The surprise is that it has taken so long to get here. Last week a high school in Lebec, a small town in the Tehachapi mountains, some 70 miles north of Los Angeles, began a course called Philosophy of Design. The course curriculum was approved by a three-to-two vote at a secretive-sounding meeting of the school board held on New Year's Day.The course teacher, Sharon Lemburg, is a special education teacher with a degree in physical education and the social sciences. Philosophy does not feature on her resume, but her marriage to a minister of the Assembly of God church does. The Assembly of God is a Christian fundamentalist, pro-creationist church, and Lebec, home to 1,300 souls, has become the latest frontline in the debate over intelligent design. While the debate rumbles away in Kansas, North Dakota and Pennsylvania, it has found its spiritual home in southern California. ...http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1685773,00.html

HUNDREDS of foreign Islamic fighters are gathering in Afghanistan ahead of the deployment of 4,000 British troops to the country in the spring. British intelligence sources have told The Scotsman Islamic radicals sympathetic to al-Qaeda see Afghanistan as their new frontline and are starting to shift the focus of their anti-western campaign from Iraq. The fighters, including Jordanians, Yemenis, Egyptians and Gulf Arabs, stepped up their campaign two months ago with a series of suicide bombings against NATO peacekeepers, United States troops and Afghan government leaders. "Attacks in Afghanistan are now running at more than 500 a month - it's getting as dangerous for westerners as Iraq in some places," said a British officer involved in planning the NATO peacekeeping mission in the south-west of the country. ...http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=58262006